Email this article to a friend

NIH director voices concerns about sequestration

Friday - 6/22/2012, 8:01pm EDT

By Esther Carey
Special to Federal News Radio

Members at all levels of the federal government are concerned about the effects
potential sequestration could have on various governmental agencies if it goes
into effect in January. Francis Collins, director of National Institutes of
Health, told a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee this week that he
worries about what cuts may have to be made.

NIH Director Francis Collins

"It's on my mind sometimes at 3 o' clock in the morning," he said. "It could do
serious damage to the progress that we now see in medical research."

Sequestration would cut NIH's budget by $2.4 billion, an 8 percent decrease, Rep.
Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said during the hearing of the House Energy and Commerce
Subcommittee on Health. It would also force NIH to fund 2,300 fewer grants than
currently available, according to Waxman.

When asked where Collins would make the cuts if Congress did not arrive at a
budget solution, he said sequestration would affect all aspects of grant funding.

"There is lots of momentum and lots of anxiety among biomedical researchers," he
said. "People bring their best and brightest ideas to NIH, but the amount of
grants that are actually funded is already at a historically low level." Collins
said it is challenging for researchers when NIH cannot know for certain year-to-
year if money will be available to continue funding long-term projects.

NIH has faced funding issues before, but Collins said that this time
"everyone would have shorter hair" as a result of the serious cuts that would come
with sequestration.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) voiced concern that low grant funding could
discourage the next generation of scientists from pursuing careers in research.
Collins said it could also have a serious impact on the morale of scientists,
particularly among new researchers who could easily get discouraged. He also
warned that if the U.S. cannot offer funding to scientists, they may go to other
countries such as China or India, which are increasingly supporting research.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) was also concerned about Title 42, a provision that allows the government to pay
particularly skilled individuals a higher rate of pay to retain their services.
When asked if that law was being used too freely, Collins said NIH was in the
process of specifying limits for its use. But, Collins said, he believes using the
provision is necessary in order to compete with private-sector jobs.

Another important issue currently under discussion at NIH is how to best bridge
the "valley of death," the term medical researchers use to refer to the gap
between discovering a potential cure and being able to produce it for public
consumption. In an effort to improve the process, NIH created the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS)
earlier this year.

In his written
testimony, Collins emphasized the importance of NCATS. Every year,
researchers discover new therapies, but it takes an average of 13 years and more
than $1 billion to get those discoveries into the medicine cabinets.

Collins said NCATS allows NIH to work with the private sector to clear some of the
bottlenecks which frequently bog down the development pipeline. The center also
looks at how drugs already in the market could be used for other purposes.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) was skeptical of NCATS' role, questioning
whether drug development was beyond what NIH should be focusing on. Collins
reassured her that NCATS will not detract from the main focus of NIH, which is
researching new issues. NCATS is simply a way to reorganize the agency's
capabilities into more effective execution, he said.